What does it take to nurture "Made in Africa" Emerging Evaluators?

Evaluators have big shoes to fill, from being technical experts in various evaluation types and methods to having interpersonal skills that facilitate good processes, maintaining good relationships with clients, evaluation teams and evaluands, and project management skills (to mention only a few).??

And the list keeps growing.?

Evaluators are often positioned as authority figures, calling organisations and programmes to account, challenging organisations to change, exposing organisational challenges, and judging the value of programmes.??

So how do we nurture "Made in Africa" Emerging Evaluators (EEs) who often:?

• Have had some history of colonialism and oppression, which implicitly influences how they view their own power, authority and ""expert-ness"". Especially since the faces of influential evaluators are not African faces and the methodologies used/taught at universities do not represent African principles and practices.

• Have been through an education system that does not adequately prepare them for the world of work?

• Come from a diversity of contexts and cultures that sometimes reinforce oppressive social norms such as patriarchy and ageism.

Southern Hemisphere has supported emerging evaluators for over 15 years through our internship (Emerging Evaluator) programme. We see passionate and ambitious evaluators coming through the ranks of our universities. While technical evaluation skills are essential to nurture, we also see other gaps in project management skills, interpersonal skills, self-management skills and self-confidence. Some of these as a result of the context outlined above.?

So, how do we nurture Emerging African Evaluators holistically, given their contexts? And how do we learn from our emerging African evaluators to change the practice and face of evaluation to become more African??

Here are some lessons we have learned at Southern Hemisphere based on my experience of starting out as an Emerging African Evaluator.?

Host organisations must be prepared to nurture the technical, interpersonal, and self-management skills of EEs?

This means providing feedback and mentoring on all these levels. Providing capacity-strengthening opportunities focusing on leadership, personal mastery, project management, facilitation skills, and conflict resolution is critical for developing interpersonal and self-management skills.?

Emerging evaluators need opportunities to lead "front-facing" engagements

EEs need opportunities to engage with clients, evaluate team members, evaluate evaluands, and communities to build confidence. Get them involved in data collection and presentations and invite them into discussions within evaluation teams. Notably, support them in preparing for these engagements.?

Be upfront with clients about the involvement of Emerging Evaluators in the evaluation team

This means communicating their experience level, role in the evaluation process and your commitment to nurture their skills as an organisation. This helps negotiate the expectations of the client and make space for learning.

Make space for failure as part of the learning process

This is important and often difficult to embrace as a mentor or lead evaluator. Helping EEs to reflect on the learning that comes from failure is an integral part of your mentoring role and essential for building resilience.

Set up an Individual Development Plan for EEs?

These plans should highlight the technical, interpersonal and self-management skills they should develop on their EE learning journey. Assign one mentor who will periodically check in with this EE to help them reflect on progress towards these individual learning/development objectives. This helps us to see how they are growing and learning.

Develop a peer-to-peer forum for more junior staff in the organisation to discuss the challenges they grapple with and share solutions?

Have mechanisms to feed back some of these challenges and solutions to the host organisation. This peer-to-peer support helps them to reflect on their challenges and experiences in a space where power and expertise are more balanced.?

Encourage mutual feedback on the experience

To help improve EES, they should be encouraged to share their discovery experience. EEs and mentors should have frank exchanges to ensure the mentoring support is tailored to the EEs and the organisation's needs.?

Allow spaces where EEs can share their views and experiences within the host organisation?

This means inviting them to do first-level thinking or analysis for an evaluation report, running internal facilitation processes, and presenting at "brown bag" sessions. This provides a safer space to practice their skills.?

Connect with us?

Our universities are producing a wave of passionate and driven evaluators. While technical skills are crucial, other skill gaps exist. So, let's move towards actively nurturing their potential!?

If you are a development organisation or grantee, contact us to learn how we can support your emerging evaluator programme.?